385 Magazine Fall 2020

385 Fall • 2020

Our People Our Stories

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Transport 2•385 •Our People•Our315 Stories

Dr. • Cookeville, TN

Winter•2020 •1

When we stay at the

top of our game,

YOU win!

Kenneth GRINSPUN MD

James McKINNEY MD

Greg ROBERTS MD

John M. TURNBULL MD

Shawn STACHLER DO

Christopher JUELS DPM

Derek WORLEY MD

David BURSTEDT MD

C

ookeville Regional has taken its orthopedic surgery program to the next level once more. We offer the latest innovations in minimally invasive and robotic orthopedic surgery, allowing for same-day hip, knee, shoulder and ankle replacement. We have also added an orthopedic nurse navigator to prepare patients and their families with education prior to their procedure. We’re proud to have recently added the region’s only fellowship-trained and board-certified primary care sports medicine physician to our medical staff, Dr. Derek Worley. And, we have received the honor of being the only medical center in the state to be named one of Healthgrades’ 100 Best Hospitals for Orthopedic Surgery for nine years running.

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To find an orthopedic surgeon at Cookeville Regional, call the physician referral line at 931-783-2571 or 877-377-2762 (toll-free) or visit CRMCHealth.org/ortho.

385

Volume 5 | Issue 1

Staff

Publisher

Jack McNeely jack.mcneely@herald-citizen.com

Editor & Graphic Designer Don Foy don.foy@herald-citizen.com

Contributors Lindsay Pride Jim Herrin Paige Stanage Ben Wheeler Ben Craven Advertising Roger Wells Dusty Smith Stephanie Garrett

Ad Composition Becky Watkins Business Manager Sandy Malin Circulation & Distribution Keith McCormick Ronda Dodson

385 Magazine is a publication of and distributed quarterly by the Herald-Citizen, a division of Cookeville Newspapers, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or stored for retrieval by any means without written consent from the publisher.

385 Magazine is not responsible for unsolicited materials and the publisher accepts no responsibility for the contents or accuracy of claims in any advertisement in any issue. 385 Magazine is not responsible for errors, omissions or changes in information. The opinions of contributing writers do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the magazine and its publisher.

Our mission is to promote the 385 zip code areas of the Upper Cumberland and to showcase their many attributes. We welcome ideas and suggestions for future editions of the magazine. Just send us a brief note via email. © 2020 Herald-Citizen 385 Magazine P.O. Box 2729 Cookeville, TN 38502 931.526.9715 Email: 385Magazine@herald-citizen.com

4•385 •Our People•Our Stories

from the

Editor I always look forward to producing this magazine for you, but never more than I have this time. First off, we’ve redesigned the fixtures in the magazine. You may notice the cover design is different, as are the staff page, just to the left of this column, and the contents page.

More importantly, we have three interesting stories this time around. I sat down with the guys in the City of Cookeville’s sign shop so I could tell you about how all those signs are made and installed.

Paige Stanage rode along with Baxter Police Sgt. Richard Bullard to talk about being a small-town police officer. And Jim Herrin sat down with John Ross Albertson, director of Putnam County’s Parks and Recreation Department. Albertson reveals his management philosophy, one that’s pretty rare in today’s world.

Our regular fixtures include photos from the Rotary Golf Scramble and, since we finally got to play football, some fan shots from Putnam County’s three high schools.

Finally, Why I Love features a chat with Cookeville-Putnam County Chamber of Commerce Director of Workforce Developement and Education Kaitlin Salyer.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy it.

Don Foy, Editor

Mike Roaten and Robert Cotnoir make almost every sign in Cookeville. Their story starts on Page 9.

on the

Cover

Jack McNeely

PUTTING UNDERSTANDING INTO ACTION FOR YOU

FirstHorizon.com

Main Ofce

345 South Jefferson Avenue Cookeville, Tennessee 38501 (931) 528-2561

West Cookeville

Checking Savings & CDs SBA Loans Bill Pay Mobile Banking Services Retirement Planning Mobile Deposit Auto & Mortgage Loans Merchant Services Personal Loans

389 West Jackson Street Cookeville, Tennessee 38501 (931) 528-4980

Sparta 469 Bockman Way Sparta, Tennessee 38583 (931) 836-3277

Contents

9

16

21

Signs

Small-town Cop

All About US

Cookeville’s in-house sign shop makes and maintains the more-than 14,000 street signs in the city.

Sgt. Richard Bullard talks about what makes being a police officer in a small town so rewarding.

John Ross Albertson, director of Putnam County’s recreation department, reveals his management philosophy.

30•

Photo Galleries With high school football in full swing, Paige Stanage took a few shots at all three Putnam County high schools. And Ben Craven took photos of several of the players in the Rotary Club’s annual golf scramble.

6•385 •Our People•Our Stories

34•

Why I Love…

Cookeville-Putnam County Chamber of Commerce Director of Workforce Development and Education Kaitlin Salyer.

Fall•2020•7

E R E H W Y R E EV A

N G I S Cookeville’s sign shop takes care of more than 14,000 signs in the city Story and photos by

DON FOY Fall•2020•9

Mike Roaten and Robert Cotnoir perform a process known as reverse weed to remove excess material from what will become a street sign.

Y

ou’ve probably never seen their faces. You don’t know their names.

But if you’ve driven in Cookeville, you’ve seen their work. Maybe even marveled at it.

Tucked deep in the back of the city’s Public Works facility on East Broad Street, behind the main building, past the long row of stinky garbage trucks, sits the sign shop.

Two men there, Mike Roaten and

10•385 •Our People•Our Stories

Robert Cotnoir, make pretty much every sign in Cookeville, plus signs for Baxter, Monterey, Algood, Putnam County and Tennessee Tech.

“There are more than 14,000 signs in the city of Cookeville,” Roaten, a 31-year veteran of the sign shop, said.

“Six or seven years ago we inventoried more than 13,000 signs, and we’ve added more than 1,000 since then.”

If you think about it for a minute, you’ll realize how many signs there are out there. At any one intersection, you may see street identifica-

tion signs, turn signal signs, a traffic signal sign, lane information like right turn only and no turn on red signs. And if there’s no signal at the intersection, at least a couple of stop signs.

And that’s just at an intersection.

There are speed limit signs, school zone signs, signs that point to the downtown area or Tennessee Tech, children playing signs, signs to alert motorists to changing speed limits and many others.

Roaten and Cotnoir made the custom lighted street signs on the traffic

Mike Roaten strips waste material from a street sign.

Fall•2020•11

light standards on the Courthouse Square.

There’s even a sign pointing to the sign shop.

Roaten and Cotnoir, who’s worked in the sign shop for four years, handle every part of the sign process from design to production to installation.

That means designing what the sign looks like, with input from city officials if it’s not a standard sign, production of the sign starting with an aluminum blank of the correct size, applying pressure-sensitive vinyl, installing the post the sign goes on and bolting the sign to the post.

“It’s a fun job,” Cotnoir said. “I had been filling in when one of the guys in the sign shop was out, and when the job came open because of retirement, I applied.”

Because he had already been helping some in the sign shop, Cotnoir was hired to replace the retiring man, Danny Ransom.

Roaten was doing concrete work for the city when he broke his thumb. Instead of going on workers’ comp, he asked if there was something else he could do. So he started helping in the sign shop. When his thumb healed, they asked him to stay.

“Back then, we had a die-cut

Robert Cotnoir shows how he and Mike Roaten keep up with how old Cookeville’s signs are.

The inset sticker can be punched to show when a sign is installed.

12•385 •Our People•Our Stories

Robert Contoir uses a press to attach reflective vinyl to a sign blank.

machine,” Roaten said. “For a street sign, you cut each white letter in the die. Then you placed them on the green sign by hand, and heat sealed the vinyl. We could do five or six signs a day.”

The street-sign process is much different now. The aluminum blank

is covered first with a white, highly-reflective vinyl. Instead of heat, the vinyl is pressure sensitive, so the sign is run through a rolling press, which affixes the vinyl permanently to the aluminum. Next, the green overlay is stuck to the white vinyl using the same process.

Those green overlays are made with a plotter fitted with a knife instead of a printer head. It cuts outlines, and the sign maker removes the parts that should be white, a process called reverse weed, before it is stuck to the white vinyl.

And just because a sign is old and Fall•2020•13

Robert Cotnoir removes the protective covering to reveal a freshly-made street sign.

14•385 •Our People•Our Stories

faded doesn’t mean it is discarded. If the aluminum is good, they can put a new vinyl face on it and make it look like new. Not much is thrown away.

Almost every sign in the shop is made the same way.

“It’s pretty repetitious,” Roaten said. “Everything is made the same way, just using different shapes and colors.”

And it’s not just signs, Roaten said. They are responsible for the vinyl markings identifying every city vehicle, the colorful striping on police cars and some of the pavement markings on city streets.

And it continues to be a learning process.

“A lot of the tricks of this job, we were taught,” Roaten said. “And a lot of them we just figured out.”

•385•

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16•385 •Our People•Our Stories

all-town Cop Baxter sergeant tells about policework in small towns Story by PAIGE STANAGE Photos By PAIGE STANAGE and DON FOY

S

ome people are lucky enough to know what they want to be when they grow up. Richard Bullard is one of those people because he always knew what he wanted to do with his life, and is doing it.

Bullard is a sergeant at the Baxter Police Department, where he has worked for nearly five years. He started his BPD career as a road officer in 2016, and was promoted to sergeant in 2018.

“I enjoy getting out, riding around and meeting people,” Bullard said. “I like trying to help people, if I can. I enjoy it here because it’s a small town and the people are nice. Everybody knows everybody. I think our crime rate is low because we stay out and keep the roads hot. We get out and ride around a lot, which is fine by me because I don’t like sitting still.”

Fall•2020•17

Sgt. Richard Bullard has been with the Baxter Police Department for nearly five years. He conducts traffic stops, investigates calls, directs traffic and more.

Chief Danny Holmes works with Sgt. Bullard and other officers to determine special assignments each day.

18•385 •Our People•Our Stories

Bullard is one of seven full-time officers. They all work on rotational, 12-hour shifts that average about 40 hours each week.

“I also work part-time at the White County Sheriff’s Office, so I stay busy,” he said. “My cousin, Steve Page, is the sheriff there. It’s funny because he and I went into the (law enforcement) academy together. I remember running into an assistant director (with the academy) a few years after our graduation and he said, ‘I see you and your cousin have done well for yourselves.’”

Bullard grew up in Smithville, Tennessee where his dad was a handyman and his mom a factory worker. He spent some time as a kid watching “cop shows” like Hunter; Walker, Texas Ranger; and his personal favorite, The Dukes of Hazzard. Those were his inspiration.

Sgt. Richard Bullard often begins his workday at Baxter City Hall before “hitting the road.”

“That was my perspective of it, but I never knew anybody in law enforcement growing up,” he said. “One day in either junior or senior year of high school, we had a career day where we went to the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Department and toured the jail. It all just really interested me.”

After high school, Bullard worked for the DeKalb County school system. In his spare time, he would go on ride-alongs with a constable until he landed a job at the DCSD jail. He said he didn’t stay there long because he “doesn’t do politics.” He went back to work with the school system until 2010.

“In 2011, I weighed about 425 pounds until I had weight loss surgery,” he said. “Then I enrolled in the academy with Steve. After we got out (of the academy), we went around everywhere applying for jobs.”

Page was offered a job at the WCSO and Bullard took a position at the Cannon County Sheriff’s Office jail as a shift leader. He was promoted to a road officer after 90 days.

“I stayed on the road for about a year until I got demoted because I scratched up a radio,” he said. “So I went back to my job in the jail and stayed there for three months until I got on with Van Buren County full-time.

So after a little more than one year, I went to the WCSO full-time and stayed in Van Buren part-time. I quit White County in 2016 because they said I drove my vehicle too

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Fall•2020•19

Sgt. Richard Bullard’s favorite part of his job is interacting with Baxter citizens, he says. much.

That’s when I came over to BaxBax ter.”

He said BaxBax ter is a little slower-paced than what he was used to.

“If you get something here after midnight, it’s bad,” he said. “I work nights most Wednesdays and Thursdays. Last Wednesday night, I wrote about 11 tickets from just two or three cars.

“But I did have a semi truck that ran a red light and almost hit me. He got a ticket.”

While it’s slower-paced, he said he likes it more than searching for suspects in swamps like he sometimes did in Spencer.

“When I worked in Spencer, I would be by myself some

20•385 •Our People•Our Stories

nights,” he said. “One night, I was called out to a scene where an old man had a shotgun and was threatening to shoot two trespassers.

I chased the Sgt. Richard Bullard wears a “Thin Blue suspects until Line” wedding band. The “Thin Blue Line” one gave up, refers to the line that keeps society from and the other plummeting into violent chaos. ran into the swamp.

“He heard me hollering for him, but he wasn’t going to come out. I had to go in to the swamp to arrest him.”

He said while the job is mentally and physically exhausting, he still enjoys it.

“I believe in hard work, honesty and treating people fairly,” he said. “I try to treat everybody the same.”

•385•

It’s About

US

P&R director’s philosophy includes faith, teamwork Story by JIM HERRIN Photos by JACK McNEELY

If

John Ross Albertson has a philosophy, (“To be honest, I’ve never really spent much time thinking about it,” he says), it may be that humility is the best approach to life, to sports, and to sports management.

“It’s not about me. It’s about us,” said the Director of Putnam County’s Parks and Recreation Department, who admits that he’s had to face some difficult challenges during his tenure in that job, including the debate a few years ago over youth sports fees.

Albertson pointed out that soccer, lacrosse, volleyball Fall•2020•21

and football had been paying a $20 per player fee to the county for use of the sports fields, while baseball leagues had not been. He suggested that either everyone be charged, or no one be charged.

After a contentious discussion, the county commission voted for no fees.

“I had a lot of people that were very angry at me trying to force the issue, but I felt like it needed to be addressed,” he said.

Addressing the needs of the community is something that Albertson has stressed since taking on the job in March of 2015, and that approach was never more evident than in March of 2020 when a tornado ravaged the county.

“We’re a Parks and Rec Department. We’re not really first responders. That’s not our role,” he said. “But that morning, it just so happened that we had four staff members that were in our shop at 3:30 in the morning, and they grabbed their chainsaws and headed right down to the tornado site to start clearing roads.”

Like the rest of the communi-

ty, he and his staff spent the next several weeks focused on disaster relief.

“The odds of things working out to where our staff could be in a place to be able to do what we needed to do to help is unusual,” he said. “I see it, personally, as a God thing.”

Faith permeates Albertson management style, which emphasizes a family atmosphere and community spirit.

“Our staff is essentially a family, and that’s what we want. Some may see their faith or other’s faith as a limitation to their ability to be inclusive or to be subjective in decision making,” he said. “I see it as the opposite because my faith in Jesus Christ tells me to focus on the people, no matter their background or their story. We all, as citizens of this county, have a role and place in making this such a great community to live.”

Albertson knows the community well.

The 2009 Cookeville

John Ross Albertson sits at the new “Thin Blue Line” conference table with with his comfort food, peanut M&M’s.

We’ll make sure you’re covered all the way down the line. Or trail.

Contact me to make a plan that lets you focus on being good at life.

Insure. Prepare. Retire.

22•385 •Our People•Our Stories

320 E Broad St. | Suite 1A | Cookeville, TN Office 931-525-LIFE(5433) | Cell 931-265-1959 avburckhard@nyl.com

Andrea V. Burckhard LUTCF®, CAP® Agent, New York Life Insurance Company

Be good at life.

John Ross Albertson, second from right, and the rest of the crew work to cover the Community Center Pool.

Whether a business has been open for one year or a hundred years - It’s always good to

shop local!

Herald-Citizen

Be Good At Life® Andrea V. Burckhard

LUTCF®, CAP® Registered Representative offering securities through NYLIFE Securities LLC, Member FINRA/SIPC, a Licensed Insurance Agency.

1300 Neal Street • 931-526-9715

In Business for 118 Years

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Agent, New York Life Insurance Company 320 E. Broad St, 1A • Cookeville, TN OfÀce 931-525-LIFE(5433) • Cell 931-265-1959 www.AndreaBurckhard.com

In Business for 16 Years

Fall•2020•23

High School graduate managed the girls’ basketball team and also “helped with the football team” before moving on to obtain degrees in exercise science and sports management at Tennessee Tech.

“I worked for the Tennessee Tech football team all through my undergraduate years under Watson Brown and went on from that to be a graduate assistant with the football program,” he said. “Then I spent a year at Tech doing equipment coordination for all of their sports.”

He said his education and training has served him well in overseeing the county’s parks department.

“A lot of things in sports management relate to Parks and Recreation,” he said. “Facility management is one of the mainstays. If you’re going to be a sports manager, you have to manage facilities, and that’s essentially what our department does.”

He is also proud of the partnerships that enabled the department to assist with parks projects in Baxter and Monterey.

“We could not have done that if we didn’t have a solid group of people,” he said.

That “solid group of people” especially impressed Albertson earlier this year.

“The March tornados that hit our community opened my eyes to what can be accomplished by our community when our focus is on others and not ourselves,” he said. “I heard

PUTNAM

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24•385 •Our People•Our Stories

This “John Ross Albertson Approved” stamp is a reflection of his lighthearted approach to managing his staff. He said he uses it to stamp timecards since the county requires him to sign off on all timecards. The crew gets a kick out of it.

200 West Jackson St., Cookeville 931•528•MERC(6372) www.1stmerc.net

Putnam County Strong!

John Ross Albertson in his office. countless stories of tornado victims turning down supplies because someone else was in greater need.”

He has now changed his approach to helping others.

“So often, I think about helping someone that may be in a time of need, but I briefly think about helping, and then go back to what I was doing before,” he admitted. “I’ve made it my personal goal to be better at following through with helping those in need that cross my path through my normal daily life. I’m not perfect, but I strive to be as best I can every day, which is what drives me to improve our Parks department every day.”

•385•

LIVINGSTON

Regional Hospital

Obstetrics and Gynecology

H I G H P O I N T H E A LT H S Y S T E M • • • • •

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• • • • • •

Diagnostic Imaging & Radiology Digital Mammography Emergency Services Inpatient Rehab Occupational Medicine Outpatient Rehab

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Fall•2020•25

The

Outpatient Rehabilitation Center at COOKEVILLE REGIONAL

All You Need to Recover

Outpatient Rehab Goes the Extra Mile to Get Patients Back in Action

C

ookeville Regional’s Outpatient Rehabilitation Center is here to meet your therapy needs. The experienced, licensed therapists at the Outpatient Rehabilitation Center strive to deliver the highest quality therapy in the Upper Cumberland. We have found that patients have better results when they can start outpatient rehabilitation as soon as they are medically able after hospitalization or injury.

26•385 •Our People•Our Stories

The Outpatient Rehabilitation Center features a spacious gym area with weight lifting and aerobic equipment, a variety of painrelieving modalities, plus machines capable of isokinetic and functional capacity testing. The center provides physical therapy and occupational therapy as well as private pediatric and speech therapy treatment areas. The Outpatient Rehabilitation Center is able to provide therapy services for a variety of ages, from infants to the elderly. Ergonomic consultation and job-site assessment services are also available for businesses and industries.

Are you an athlete, or do you have an injury common to athletes?

N

ot all physical therapy is the same. The best outcomes come in the quickest manner when a sports expert provides treatment. A sports clinical specialist (SCS) is your best option, and Cookeville has one at the CRMC Sports Medicine Clinic at Tennessee Tech, located on the campus of Tennessee Tech University.

PHYSICAL THERAPY • Orthopedic and sports-related injuries • Neurological therapy • Back and spine therapy • Incontinence/pelvic floor therapy • Wheelchair assessments • Industrial rehabilitation program OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY • Hand therapy • Lymphedema therapy • Neurological therapy • Pediatric therapy SPEECH THERAPY • Speech/language and voice therapy • Cognitive evaluation and treatment • Swallowing evaluation and treatment • Neurological therapy • Pediatric therapy

With specialized training focused on sports injuries, a physical therapist with a sports clinical specialization (SCS) has passed a rigorous board certification exam after thousands of hours of training and education, in some cases tied to a sports clinical residency program. You will find such therapists coordinating rehab in all professional sports, including MLB, NFL, NBA, MLS and beyond.

David Maldonado, DPT, SCS, ATC/L, PES, the physical therapist at CRMC Sports Medicine Clinic at Tennessee Tech, is the only SCS in the region. At the clinic, patients can take advantage of the same facilities used by Tech athletes.

Also, Maldonado is an athletic trainer with a strength and conditioning specialist background. He has formal residency training to help any athlete or weekend warrior reach their goals quickly.

CRMC Sports Medicine at Tennessee Tech takes most insurance plans and will feature one-on-one treatment using objective testing and researched treatment approaches.

For more information, please contact the Outpatient Rehabilitation Center at (931) 783-2900.

Flexible scheduling is available.

Call (931) 783-2463 or (931) 783-2900 today to make an appointment or take a tour of the facility!

Fall•2020•27

I think it’s essential that you have your mammogram. What if I hadn’t had mine this time?

— BERTA NAUGLE, breast cancer survivor

Berta Naugle with her dog, Mattie, and her husband, Bill, at their RV

Breast Cancer Survivor Says Regular Mammograms Are ‘Vital’ She Developed Stage 3 Breast Cancer in Just One Year

B

erta Naugle of Cookeville is thankful that she has been diligent about having her yearly mammograms, because in just the time between two of her annual mammograms, she developed cancer in a breast and several lymph nodes.

After she had her January 2019 mammogram, The Women’s Center at Cookeville Regional found an unusual area and called her back for

28•385 •Our People•Our Stories

an ultrasound. When those results also confirmed that there might be an issue, they performed a biopsy that came back suspicious but also not diagnostic of breast cancer.

Because of those uncertain results, she was sent to see breast surgeon Dr. Jeff Moore, who recommend an excisional biopsy, which confirmed that Naugle had stage 3 lobular carcinoma.

“EVERY TIME I SEE SOMEONE, I TELL THEM, ‘PLEASE DO YOUR MAMMOGRAM.’ IT’S SO VITAL” — BERTA NAUGLE “That explained why her mammogram looked the way it did, because those kinds of breast cancers sometimes just have an abnormal appearance, but you don’t actually see a lump or mass in the breast,” said Dr. Thomas Summers, Naugle’s oncologist at the CRMC Cancer Center.

Five lymph nodes in her arm were also found to be cancerous, so her case was reviewed by a committee of Cancer Center physicians.

“Because lobular cancer tends to be more diffuse throughout the breast, the consensus at our breast tumor conference was for her to undergo a mastectomy and additional lymph node sampling from under her arm, which showed that she had three additional lymph nodes involved,” said Dr. Summers.

Naugle received three months of chemotherapy followed by radiation, and because her tumor was estrogen receptor positive, she was placed on a medication to decrease the amount of estrogen in her bloodstream that could potentially drive the growth of any possible cancer cells that were still remaining in her body. She’ll continue on that therapy for 10 years.

“The chemotherapy was rough, but the people at the Cancer Center are excellent,” said Naugle. “They are so inspiring, and they just encourage you and smile. When I went in and was down, they’d just make my day.”

Amy Ellis, RN, BSN, CBCN, CRMC’s breast health nurse navigator who was with Naugle at appointments and available to her by phone throughout her cancer journey, says it’s especially important to get regular mammograms even when you don’t suspect cancer so you’ll have a normal baseline to compare future images against.

Berta Naugle encourages all women to get their annual mammograms.

finished a 10-week adventure across the U.S., visiting 17 states and traveling 6,700 miles.

And now, more than ever before, she strongly encourages every woman she knows to get regular mammograms.

“Every time I see someone, I tell them, ‘Please do your mammogram. It’s so vital,’” said Naugle, who has no family history of breast cancer. “What if I hadn’t had mine this time?”

For more information about The Women’s Center at CRMC, call (931) 783-2628 or visit www.crmchealth.org/womenscenter.

“Berta had an unusual form of cancer that didn’t show up as a lump or a mass, but because she had gotten regular mammograms, her physicians were able to see that a change had occurred, which helped them find her cancer,” said Ellis.

Still cancer free nearly a year after finishing chemotherapy last November, Naugle is enjoying traveling in her RV with her husband, Bill, and her dog, Mattie. The three of them recently

Fall•2020•29

Football Fans

Photos: Paige Stanage

Davidson Reese, Jackson Kelly, Matt Sweeny, Skylar Allen, Carter Cantrell and Gracie Russell.

Kinsley Dennis.

MeKayla, Winnie and Rhonda Belk.

CITIZENS BANK 51 E. Jackson Street | Cookeville, TN | 528.1999 www.citzcar.com

30•385 •Our People•Our Stories

James and Sara Flach with daughter, Chloe.

Shyla Taumua and Shyrie Soloman.

Evie and Josie Moody.

Tony and Jennie Stinnett with daughter, Jillian.

Helping families receive peace of mind since 1930.

Speck & Livingston Funeral Homes and Cremation | Livingston, TN | SpeckFuneral.com Fall•2020•31

Ben Craven took these photos of some of the participants in the annual Rotary Golf Scramble in September at the Golden Eagle Golf Club.

Rotary Scramble

Barrett Steakley.

Dennis Baker, Randal Petrie, Will Wilson and Bill Reilly.

32•385 •Our People•Our Stories

Will Mullins and Johnie Reels.

Jeff Apple and Jason Watson.

Don Allison and Donny Greene.

Doug Malone.

Bobby Jones and “Sand Man” Bowman.

Josh Brooks and Paul Leddy.

Fall•2020•33

Why I Love‌ Cookeville Cookeville-Putnam County Chamber of Commerce Director of Workforce Development and Education

Kaitlin Salyer How did you end up in Cookeville? What do you love about living here?

A Macon County native, I moved to Cookeville in 2008 to attend Tennessee Tech, and immediately fell in love with the area. We love to volunteer for community events. There are many reasons I love calling Cookeville my home, but it’s the family-like feel of the community that makes it extra special.

What is your job at the Cookeville-Putnam County Chamber of Commerce?

I started working for the Highlands Economic Partnership in 2017 as the Coordinator for Workforce Development and Education. In January, I was promoted to director. I enjoy working alongside our K-12 and postsecondary partners, local employers, and area agencies to implement programs that improve graduation rates by connecting students to employers and creating early awareness of career opportunities.

Our ultimate goal is to build a pipeline of students entering programs that lead them to high demand jobs in the region. What are your goals for workforce development and education in Putnam County?

I want to ensure that we are building a strong network of partners to support providing equitable access to education and training programs for our current and future workforce, creating job opportunities for individuals re-entering the workforce from incarceration or substance abuse rehabilitation, assessing the affordability of our housing market and elements of our community that ensure a good quality of life for those who live here, helping our existing employers attract and retain a quality workforce, marketing our community as a whole, so we can recruit new business and industry and people to fill those jobs.

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